Troubled Times for Ticket

For those who know Ticket, who rarely shows any pain and had never been sick or injured (dare I say that again!) the last week has been a bit of a shock! Friday last (13th June) she was very lethargic, however she had been for Bowen Therapy the day before and this could have been a common reaction after her first Bowen treatment so we thought it 'normal'. From there on she went downhill ... not eating, then throwing up what she did try to eat, increasingly lethargic and at times, looking almost drowsy. At times she perked up, but reverted back to the somber, sluggish composure and walking around very carefully.

By Monday she looked much worse and it was definitely NOT related to the Bowen Therapy. It was so gradual that it was hard to pick when things actually started to go wrong.

We spent Monday evening at the vet (till about 9pm) and had urine, bloods, x-rays, etc., and after finding a large lump in her abdomen she went for ultrasound first thing Tuesday morning and subsequently operated on that afternoon to remove the lump, an obstruction, from her intestine and along with about 10cm of dead intestine!

The "lump" in question turned out to be some kind of material ... don't ask me where she got it or how! Ticket rarely eats anything other than food, she doesn't chew up toys (nor does she care for them) and for her to eat a foreign object is quite out of character ... besides, she is rarely loose in the house, or unsupervised, and her exercise areas are all paved, fully fenced with no gardens and her free-run time is always WITH me.

Just goes to show - doesn't matter how careful you are, things can still go wrong.
Good news is that it is/was nothing nasty (now it's out!) … tough little cookie she is, as she rarely shows pain and they say she would have been in quite a bit of pain.

She spent the next few days in hospital, on a drip as she hadn’t actually digested any food for some 4-5 days ... she coped incredibly well, staying in a strange place and being handled by total strangers and fortunately we had some very nice, understanding nurses to put our trust in.

We visited her the next day, Wednesday afternoon. I was surprised at just how well she had adapted, she actually liked the nurses and would go to them ... funny what these creatures do when they have to, hey? She was happy for them to handle her and I do think that she trusted them.

I called in to see her again on Thursday during my lunch break and she was up and about, without her drip now and very happy to see me. I couldn’t see why she had to stay another night at the vet but I couldn’t convince him otherwise so she had another night to go. I took her back to her bed before leaving and she was quite willing and happy to go, leading the way thru the operating theatre to her temporary home … I had to wonder if she thought that this was her life now, seeing she was so accepting of it all.

Anyways, other than looking pretty lean and a little tired, she was quite perky when I said "are you ready?" she answered me ... "ready" is her cue to come play/training with me and in response she answers me with an instant drop flat on the ground with her tail wagging.

Ticket came home on Friday. I have to wonder if she'd started to think that the surgery was going to be her new home as she'd settled in so well with the nurses and their routine, and she certainly wasn't stressed when she left. Maybe some good will come from all of this – it may have taught her that she CAN trust other people?

The only remaining concern was that the first lot of solid food that she had eaten, that morning, came out the right end ... and the momentous occasion was just after lunch time when Ticket finally did a poo!

Now, sporting a 16cm scar, she's enjoying all the attention, three meals a day and a free pass to use Cash's lounge chair near the heater!

Today, Sunday (nearly a week since this ordeal started), she's almost back to her usual self ... ready to go. She came to the show with us this morning for a short walk and mingle amongst the humans ... resting now, on the back patio in the sunshine, looking adoringly at the agility equipment in the backyard ... now, how do I tell her no jumping or running for at least 2 to 3 weeks?

She will be on soft food for while, rested for a couple of weeks till the insides heal, starting light exercise in the 3rd/4th week and gradually building up back to normal by the 5th week ...

Just wondering ... did she hear me talking about going to the Nationals? Well there’s still no excuse for her not to be able to go (but I’m not telling her that yet!). I’m sure she’ll be fighting fit and raring to go sooner rather than later.

Solitary Man ... Sketch

Over the past few months Sketch has been working with a new handler, Alison Smylie. As they have been getting to know each other better and bonding Alison has learnt heaps and progressed in leaps and bounds … and Sketch has gradually worked out Alison’s weaknesses (as our dogs often do) and now beginning to take advantage of the nice person that Alison is by trying to make up his own rules.

They have practiced at a few trials in the NFC (not for competition) classes and have had a number of very nice, successful runs in jumping.

To put a spanner in the works, early on Sketch also became quite ill. After many tests, results were pointing towards a liver problem and the next step was a liver biopsy. Our vet suggested trying a low-residue diet first which, even tho it’s expensive it is still cheaper than following the path of surgery for now. His health has improved and he appears to be on the road to recovery. He is becoming more opinionated and rather than doing as he’s told he is doing as he pleases so he’s obviously feeling much better!

Time for change … Alison has done a brilliant job learning how to focus and handle this young challenge … now focus will be on his discipline and team-work.

Stay tuned for updates on this team.

Catching Up ... and Ticket

It’s been a while between posts … I’ve been somewhat preoccupied with other things however we’re back on track and refocusing our training.

Over the past few months I’ve been a little distracted (or destructed!) by Ticket’s bar-knocking issues. These things do get you down sometimes, particularly when you go to a double header and 8 out of 8 runs NON-qualified because of ONE bar down in each. Yes, I do acknowledge that out of some 100+ bars only 10 may have come down (that’s nearly 10%) however that’s enough to get you down when you start adding up the entry fees and continual non-Q’s over the months/years.

What do you do with a dog like Ticket? Yes, she has “issues” to deal with when around people and on the surface the untrained eye would not even know how much she has to deal with … however, there’s something about the speed and ability of this little dog that keeps me going and I’m not ready to give up on her yet!

We’re refocusing our training back to basic skills – mainly jumping – and the first step is to get her jumping thru the tyre without kicking off with her back feet! Something she’s been doing and we’ve only just realized which may be partly the cause for bars being knocked too – she doesn’t know that it’s wrong and the hardest thing is working out how to teach her that it’s wrong.

She tries VERY hard for me and I know she doesn’t do it on purpose, nor does she not care … if she didn’t care then she would be knocking ALL the bars down – right?

We did have some positives at yesterdays Northern Suburbs Double Header Agility Trial. Ticket did a couple of lovely runs with minor problems, a couple of times we blew our weave pole entry (another skill we’re going to be working on over the next month) but no bars down … YES! I was happy with that (I know how to fix the weave pole problem) … a couple of runs with a bar down but she worked very nicely and one run clear in Open Jumping for Ticket to take 2nd Place to Gina O’Keefe’s BC “Dom”, one of our fastest dogs here … gotta say, I was pretty happy with that and we finished the day feeling a little more successful than at some of our past trials.

So lot’s of skill training on the menu for the next month … jumping, weaving, jumping, contacts, jumping and more jumping!